Shattered Star

Game Master Zesdead

Spent the past 7 to 8 hours with family. Expect the same at Christmas. Oh and Happy Thanksgiving! I know I have more things than I can remember to be thankful for, and I pray the same is true for you.

20-pt buy would really help. If the GM would allow it, I'd also like to rebuild Joanna as a paladin. (I have a pretty cool scene in my head with Iomedae granting her the abilities and Joanna would even go for it, considering her frankly embarrassing performance in this fight.)

This would really hurt in the healing department, since Joanna loses her spell slots and most of her channels, but she could definitely make up for it by being a tank, and this would allow Nalathi to be more rogue like in her tactics. This also gives Teldon, Briana, and Zee someone to hide behind. As it is, I think I have her spread too thin to be effective in combat, which is what I wanted her to be good at since I envisioned her eventually becoming a lady knight.

To be honest Joanna is indirectly one of the oldest characters I have in my head, who was essentially a copy of Saber from Fate/Stay Night at first, but I think I've done well enough that Joanna is her own character.

Have you considered rebuilding Joanna as a warpriest of Iomedae? That would increase her combat prowess considerably. It would lower her effectiveness as a healer, but would still be better than a paladin in that regard.

Another possibility would be to multiclass into paladin. If you wanted to do that, I'd recommend going... 2nd level: Cleric 1/paladin 1; 3rd level: Cleric 2/paladin1; 4th level: Cleric 2/paladin2; then continue as cleric. You'd gain +2 BAB, smite evil, detect evil at will, and lay on hands, at the expense of being 2 spell levels behind.

I think we should also acquire a wand of cure light wounds at our earliest convenience!

+1 to the wand of CLW

I have no objections to anyone rebuilding (in fact if this were PFS we'd all have the option to do so before finalizing 2nd level); I do think, though, that if we're gonna change the point buy it would make a lot more sense to do now than it would to wait til 3rd level....

Joanna- for whatever it's worth, I actually was thinking along the same lines as Zee... You obviously have a better idea of your character than we do but in my mind I definitely thought of her as more of a warpriest...

Briefly thought about it, but I'm not sure. To me, Joanna seems more of a Paladin than a Warpriest. The wand will definitely help either way, and I'm more than willing to let our first cash in go towards it.

I just dunno, I know that rebuilding Joanna as a Paladin will take the oomph out of our most capable healer, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea.

I was looking at options to up Teldon's combat viability.... None of them were very significant upgrades, but if I rebuild as an Investigator it looks like I'd come out ahead (especially if we change the point buy too). My knowledge skills will take a hit but I think they might be unreasonably high right now (they currently range from +10 to +14, and I can add a d6 to that 4 times/day).

The biggest downside is that I would lose bombs... I know they've been a mixed blessing so far, but now that I have precise bombs they should be useful, and they're pretty much our only AoE damage...

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on that?

edit: if it seems to everyone like our only realistic option is a change in personnel, I'm open to possibly doing that... I enjoy Teldon (and certainly am not opposed to continuing to play him) but his big thing is being a know it all and most of the knowledges are already covered by others... Again, I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts?

For what it's worth, I'd hate to see Teldon go - I like the character as well as the bonds beginning to form with all of the PCs. I could actually see Joanna as both a Warpriest or a Paladin, so I'm happy with whatever you decide to do with her. As far as Briana goes, I'll have to read up a little more on possible abilities and hexes, but I'm pretty sure that I can build her to be more healer-oriented if need be. If Gm Zed allows it, I could change her main spirit (again) to Life and if not, she can still pick it up as her Wandering Spirit at 4th level.

Joanna: It's your character, so play the one you want! I'd you rebuild as a paladin, well have three secondary healer types in the party, which should be fine. Especially if we get our hands on a wand of CLW. I played in a Carrion Crown game with no primary healers, where my wizard physician did most of the healing (via Heal checks and making alchemical healing items like "troll styptic.")

I don't want Teldon to go either. I think we've built up a very good report among the PCs so far.

I'll agree with Teldon that a rebuild at 20 points would make more sense now than later. That would boost Zee's combat ability a bit.

I think I'm going to keep Zee pretty much on the same track that I'd originally considered, although I'm still considering a level dip into a martial class.

So from what I am hearing:

A) Let's do the 20pt rebuild now
B) If anyone wants to rebuild characters - either new class (Cleric to Paladin) or different options in a particular class, I'm totally cool with that.
C) I think the overwhelming consensus is to keep the characters we have and, from my perspective, I'm not keen on moving to a 6 person party.

Cheers,
GM Zed

@Teldon: I like Teldon, and there's really not a need to swap him out. Besides, I get the feeling that there's some potential for some interesting character dynamics once certain things are revealed in game.

@Briana and Zee: Alright, given GM Zed's news, Paladin it is. :)

@GM Zed: I'll have Joanna rebuilt soon and send you a PM with what I've come up with to have the change happen in game.

The more I look at it the more I think investigator may have been a better fit in the first place... I really like the cognatogen and the perfect recall ability, but they're mostly overkill and as useful as bombs are they always felt a little out of character for him... If I rebuild I could also have him a little bit more like hid dad (which likely makes no sense to anyone else, but it's from his background and makes sense in my mind).

My holiday busyness won't end until Sunday night, but I'll try to decide for sure (and workout the new build if necessary) this afternoon so I don't hold anything up...

edit: I like that Jo is doing an in-game change but for Teldon I'd rather just switch him over and we can maybe write off the bombs as some alchemist fire he had, and the cognatogen as a potion of fox's cunning?

I could easily see Teldon as an investigator, not to mention I think they're a fun class with several different 'build' options depending on what you want to do.

I'm at work right now so I don't have access to Bree's HeroLab file, but I'll try and get her profile updated after I get home tonight. Still thinking over whether I want to change her spirit again or not; switching to Life would give her the ability to Channel like a cleric but only 3 times a day (1 + Cha mod). Of course with a 20 pt buy, I can always bump her charisma more and I'd likely drop her Int a little since I gave her a 14 when I still had her planned as a Lore shaman. Another downside is that I'm not particularly impressed with the Hex options that Life gets, whereas some of the Nature ones seem promising.

Briana- realistically, I don't think you'd need the life spirit to be effective as a healer (especially once we get a CLW wand- or maybe just ID the wand we found at Natalya's...). I think you should pick whatever spirit you want if you're having trouble keeping up on heals you can drop a feat to pick up healing hex (if you don't take it now) and/or pick up healing as your wandering spirit when you can....

Fortunately, I have the day off. :D

So, I rebuilt Joanna, and hopefully made her tougher. I plan on taking toughness for some more tanky goodness and first order of business is a nice masterwork sword, then saving up for some Mithral agile half-plate and a masterwork shield.

Hey, just wanted to say that I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it. If not, I hope you had a good day! If the holiday season just isn't your thing for whatever reason, then hang in there - it'll be over before you know it :)

@Teldon - Yeah, I think I'll stick with the Nature spirit and either load up on some CLW spells for the time being or possibly pick up the Healing hex. I'll actually probably pick it up no matter what, I'm just undecided on whether to do it now or maybe at next level via the Extra Hex feat.

I have some issues with the flavor/mechanics of the shaman as feels like the oracle and witch squashed together somewhat uncomfortably instead of some of the other hybrid classes which feel more like their own 'thing' with aspects of their parent classes. That being said, I do like the Wandering Spirit aspect, which grants the shaman some flexibility since you can change it each day if you want.

rebuilt Teldon as an Investigator [empiricist] (with the whole extra 5 points raising his Str from 10 to 14). profile has been updated accordingly. please let me know if there are any questions/comments/concerns.

his personality/appearance is unchanged. i have to tweak his background slightly but don't have time right now.

I'll have Zee leveled up tomorrow evening. I've been posting from my smartphone all weekend.

Just tried to edit Zee's sheet from my smartphone. After half an hour of frustration, I've given up. Her sheet is kind of messed up right now. I'll fix it tonight when I get home.

You guys have probably got a little bit of leeway before you need to have your character sheets in a good way again... Certainly no need to struggle with smartphone gymnastics to get them sorted...

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday...

I had a great holiday, despite a wonky work schedule :)

Finally got Briana (and Rowenna) updated to 2nd level and reworked some stuff for Bree based on the new 20 point buy. Stat changes are:

Str 10 --> 13
Dex 13 --> 10
Con 10 --> 14
Int 14 --> 10
Wis 16 --> 17
Cha 14 --> 16

Since Bree *can* wear medium armor, I'll probably pick some up for her once we're able to do so. Even though she won't really be a combat beast like Joanna, she should be able to take hits better (and hopefully in place of our squishier friends) due to the medium armor and the extra HPs from the increased Con. And of course the extra Wis & Cha for castery/talky goodness.

Okay, Ziomarra's character sheet is updated.

Stat Adjustment...

Str: 8 --> 10
Con: 10 --> 12
Cha: 12 --> 13

(Not a huge change, but gets rid of Strength penalties, and grants a hp adjustment.)

Zee now has the Deadly Dealer feat, and can throw Harrow cards like darts that do slashing damage. Doing so requires taking a swift action, which makes each card equivalent to a +1 dart. Within point-blank range (30 feet), that means she'll be at +5 to hit with them, and they will do 1d4+1 damage.

With the level up, and with the boost to Con, her hit points have doubled to 12!

I swear I didn't manipulate the dice roller! These Harrow readings are almost spooky!

Out of curiosity, Zee you said you used to read Tarot. Did you stop? How come?

I still have my deck, but I don't really use it much any more. I don't know... the luster wore off? I just don't feel the desire to read them much any more. That, and I no longer recall the meanings of many of the cards of the Lesser Arcana without looking them up in a book. (I used Eden Grey's Guide to the Tarot as my main reference book.)

Even when I read the cards regularaly, I never ascribed anything supernatural to them. They were a storytelling device, a way to make you look at a situation from a different perspective, a tool to tap into your own subconscious. I never believed that they could actually help predict the future, but I did think for a while that they could help in the decision-making process.

For the past 20 years or so, though, I just haven't found them all that valuable as a real-world tool of discernment. Perhaps I'm just more confident in my own decision-making-- I don't usually fall into the trap of second-guessing myself any more. Now, I pretty much only use my Tarot deck as a prop in RPGs.

Ah ok. I kinda feel the same way, they're a way to help you decide what you want to do and help you think through the possible consequences of your actions. I'd like to think there's more to Tarot (or any kind of divination) than that, but the proof just isn't there.

Well, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "Predictions are hard. Especially about the future."

That was an awesome job on the reading. Of course, now Joanna's a little freaked out, but hey, it comes with being a young, inexperienced person. :)

So wait, were we supposed to level ourselves up?

You guys can level up now or, if you want to be 'strictly legit', you can level up overnight...

For simplicity's sake, I am happy for you to level up now...noting all of the other points...rebuild to 20pt buy, flexibility in changing feats, archetypes, class options, etc...

Teldon, Ziomarra and Briana have all levelled and Joanna will overnight...

Stat changes: Dex 16 -> Dex 18

I took a level in bard (arcane duelist). Leveling now because flavor-wise I was thinking that her new magic is being taken from the shard, and I don't know how much longer she'll have it but I don't expect it'll be long.

Nalathi, since you have the option to change feats if you want... Have you considered the slashing grace feat? It would make a big difference in your damage output, but there are 2 prerequisite feats so you'd sort of have to start working towards it right away...

Actually, once I get a new trident it wouldn't make any difference at all... a trident has the same damage as a longsword (but with a smaller crit range). That's why I chose the weapon I did. It was just bad luck that I was restricted to my shortsword for most of the day. Plus, I've decided to buil toward the Shadowdancer prestige class so I need my feats (and didn't want to change the one I have after having changed it once already...)

Fair enough, though the draw of slashing grace isn't that it lets you finesse a long sword (or battle axe, or whatever), it's that it lets you add Dex to damage instead of strength!

...and as the Ioun Stone fuses with the Shard of Pride, you hit a big Story Point / Objective within the campaign...

...and your ever-benevolent gives each of you another Hero Point each...

Folks, we've done a load of exploring Magnimar, some RP with the citizens and denizens of the city, some exploration in Natalya's Hut and quite a few combats...

I think this is a good point for me to get a little bit of feedback on how it's been for you... What have you enjoyed most / would like to see a bit more of? Anything that's not quite hitting your expectation? Any suggestions / relevant experiences that would make things even better?

From my side of the 'screen', it's all been good...I've enjoyed how you've taken the various strands I've laid for you and run with them, the spontaneous improvisationa here and there...the inter-party interaction is really fun as well. I'd like to say thanks to you all for a great posting rate...being in a different time zone normally means I have a few posts to read in the morning with breakfast...

...now to work out just which of the enemies you have been accumulating is going to hold the biggest grudge...

Loving it so far. Looking forward to where it goes.

I've really been enjoying this game. Honestly, off the top of my head I can't think of anything that should be changed. I'm in about half a dozen PbPs and this one is my favorite- it has the best post rate, the GM and other players are attentive to what you post, the characters all have some actual character and are well written, and the interaction between PCs and with NPCs has been good.

I'm usually really bad at answering the question "What kinds of changes would make X better?" and this campaign is no exception. Things I've liked are the personalities of the characters-- it really feels like we've got five very different people in the party. So far Ziomarra and Joanna have been particularly good at displaying what their character is and is not from a personal perspective. And I hope my enthusiasm for this character has shown through how I've played her. I only worry that I've been hogging the spotlight too much lately...

Same; I can't think of any complaints thus far. One thing that all of my most active and longest-running games have in common is that the GM is usually willing and able to post more than once a day, which I think really does wonders for moving things along and facilitating activity on the part of the players. To give you guys some perspective, the two games I've been playing in the longest both started in early March of this year and have around 1,700~ and 2,300~ posts in their gameplay threads. We're approaching 1000 and we've been going what, about three months? :)

Interestingly enough, all three are also GMed by people who don't live in the States. The other two are in Australia and you're in England, I believe?

@Nalathi: Oh don't worry. Joanna's about to hog some of it herself in a bit.

@Brianna: I beat the GMs are also actively moving the game instead of waiting for the players as well. That's something I've had to learn how to do and when to do.

Sorry folks...really busy evening yesterday...only just caught enough time to post something...

Wondering whether you guys are excited for Giantslayer or for Hell's Rebels yet? I must admit that I am very 'on the fence' for Giantslayer...looking at the synopses, I am quite worried as to whether it would be quite thematically repetitive...

Hell's Rebels though...obviously, it is a way off and there aren't any details available...but it does look like being something different.

@GM Zed: I'm feeling the same way about the next two APs: Excited about Hell's Rebels, and not so much about Giant Slayer. I am hopeful that I will be pleasantly surprised by Giant Slayer. I was kind of "ho-hum" about both Reign of Winter and Mummy's Mask, and was really impressed by both of them.

@Teldon: Regarding Teldon's internal monologue on the Gameplay thread... Was his father part of the team that "won" Rise of the Runelords?

I incorporated a little of Crimson Throne into Zee's backstory-- her caravan was affected by the plague from Seven Days to the Grave, which informed her journey to become an adventurer and a Pathfinder.

I pretty much feel the same as you two about the next two APs based on the available information. Then again, I've only been playing Pathfinder for a year so I'm still excited about playing (most) of the APs that have been out for years :)

@Zee- yeah, if you read my background I have it that my dad was part of the group that ran Rise of the Runelords... I'm actually playing him (Baldric Moore) in a PbP RotRL games on the forums right now, but we've been having troubles getting/keeping it running smoothly. It started great but then the GM flaked out... the group was so good that we decided to recruit a new GM; we found a good one but then there was a series of delays and now its in trouble again... (We might end up trying to recruit a couple replacement players if anyone is interested)

Running a RothRL game that everyone's enjoying, or at least says they are.

That said, I love playing in it, I just want to know where you guys are and what everyone is currently bringing to the table. I have one or two characters that I would love to get a chance to let them have another crack at things.

Of course on a second read through, I am likely jumping the gun a bit. :D

On the upcoming APs
I am actually looking forward to both of them. I don't really care if Giantslayer isn't really adding anything new. Paizo's proven that they can deliver solid adventures and there;s only a few APs that I have gotten that I was wanting to run while I read them, and I can only remember two that I was thinking this is boring while reading them. (The ends to CotCT and WotR.)

So bring on some Giant killing goodness! I have always wanted to have a crack at playing a Titan Mauler

@Teldon: I was looking for Teldon's background, but it doesn't seem to be linked from his profile page.

I'm playing in a Runelords PbP currently. (It's my only other active PbP at the moment.) My character over there is tied to a couple of Runelords NPCs. The character itself was created initially as an NPC for my own Runelords game a few years ago-- her background vignette is a version of an encounter I originally designed and ran for my IRL Runelords group a few years ago.

I'm also in a Carrion Crown game that the GM just had to resign from (medical crisis). It's actually the third Carrion Crown PbP I've played in with the same character, and they've all fizzled out around the same place! If you know anyone who'd be willing to GM The Haunting of Harrowstone, chime in on this thread!

@Zee- thanks for pointing that out... I had it on there and must have accidentally erased it during some edit... Sadly, it wasn't a link- I had it actually typed out on there (and don't think I saved a copy anywhere else)... so, I'll have to rewrite it at some point.

@Jo- at the risk of sounding ridiculous, we're just finishing the first combat (we had some good RPing going on before that started though). Right now the only characters I'm sure are continuing are my lore warden/martial master guisarme wielding fighter and an enchantment Thassilonian specialist wizard. There's also a bookish rogue who's player was really enthusiastic but then got sick so we're unsure about her, and a ranger I suspect is planning on focusing on archery who said he's continuing but has been GMPCed most of combat, so we'll see. Once we really know what's going on I'll let you know in case you're interested.

@Teldon - If you guys do end up recruiting some new players, I might throw my hat in the ring depending on party composition and if any fun character ideas come to me. Even though I'm actually playing in a real life RotRL game, it's been over a year since we started and we've just barely started on the 4th volume so there's a lot of the smaller details that I don't remember very well about the first two books. Not to mention my real life group(s) tend more towards "roll playing" than "role playing" so a second go with more in-depth RPing would be fun.

@Zee - Your GM that just bowed out has had the roughest year, apparently. I've been in two separate games of his this year, several months apart, that ended/stalled due to real life issues on his part. The most recent, a Wrath of the Righteous group, recruited a replacement GM but posting has been extremely slow so I'm thinking that we might just have to stick a fork in that one. One of the players in that game also seems to be a player in Teldon's floundering RotRL game.

As far as my other games go, recent events:

(1) An E6/E7 Carrion Crown that started in March; posting has been a little sluggish lately but I think it's a combination of holiday/December business and the fact that we don't seem to have much left to do but clear

(2) The Walking Dead of Golarion. Title sums it up, been trucking along since March. As you might guess, this one tends to be higher on the action which is probably a part of why it's still going and why we apparently have several people who are following it.

(3) Iron Gods - We started out fairly strong, but our most frequent poster recently vanished on us and we've been floundering a bit since. Out of all my games, this one has been the most 'silly' in terms of character interactions as well as pokes at the 4th wall.

(4) Kingmaker - Started a couple of weeks after this game. The GM was running two tables but poofed; one player from each group agreed to take over running for the other group. The player from our group who took over the other table has since bowed out of both due to (good) real life distractions in the form of being an expectant father! It's been fun, but there was also some rockiness early on between some of the players that spilled into OOC arguing. Slow gameplay but at least we've cleared the first hurdle(s) that a lot of Kingmaker games seem to stall at, namely

(5) Jade Regent - This one had some fun characters but alas, we only ran a couple of weeks before the GM bowed out (maybe a week or so ago).

(6) Wrath of the Righteous - The one I mentioned earlier. I'm thinking this one is probably done for, sadly.

(7) Way of the Wicked - We've not had anyone drop, but the GM's posts have been sporadic due to real life health issues so I'm thinking that this one probably won't really go anywhere either.

(8) This game! Yay! :D

(Sorry for the rambling, sometimes I like to discuss some of my games with the rest of my games, if that makes any sense.)

@Briana: Wow, your Carrion Crown game started in March and you've yet to do that? When I ran a group through CC they ran straight there in like two sessions lol. Got their asses handed to them, of course.

I'm in a RotRL campaign IRL at the moment. Have GMed Carrion Crown, once we finish RotRL in a few more months we'll be playing Second Darkness. Started a Skull & Shackles PbP, but it died after a month or so.

@Nalathi